


The Riddle

by TheJemi



Series: Secret of Life Stuff [2]
Category: Boy Meets World, Girl Meets World
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Best Friends, Bromance, Developing Relationship, F/M, Family, Family you Choose, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Half-Siblings, People Change People, Step-parents, secret of life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-06-07 05:09:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6786535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheJemi/pseuds/TheJemi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shawn Hunter never had an easy life, but he had good people in it. Shawn Hunter's life begins the day that Riley Matthews is born - he just doesn't know it yet.</p>
<p>Or, Shawn Hunter through the years and how he discovers that people change people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

Shawn Hunter is twenty one and his best friends have just had a baby.

She is small and loud and Cory loves her more than anything else in the world. More than Topanga. More than him.

Shawn Hunter is twenty one, and he doesn’t know it, but his life has just started.

-

Shawn Hunter is twenty two and he doesn’t even realize it.

It’s been a year since he left New York and he’s been driving all over the country taking pictures. He’s up in Canada, in some small town he can barely pronounce when he thinks to call Cory.

“Hey Shawnie. I wanted to call you but I didn’t know where you were staying.”

“Oh you know, here and there. Everywhere.”

More conversations with Cory start like that than he would care to admit. Had it been a year? He’d have to head back down to New York for Riley’s first birthday,  and soon.  The days had begun to run together some weeks (months?) ago and he’s not totally sure how long it’s been since his birthday, if he’s being totally honest.

Riley’s birthday is easy. He gets her stuffed bear, because what kid doesn’t love stuffed animals. There’s cake and laughter and the whole Matthews crew and Jack and Rachel sent a card.

It’s something warm and familiar and safe, but Shawn knows that this moment is for family. However Cory loves him, and however Topanga cares for him, and not matter how hard he cares in return, he is not Cory’s brother. Alan is not his father, that’s been made clear. Amy is not his mother, but he thinks he’s outgrown the need for one.

He loves these people, he does, but he’ll never be family, not really.

At least, that’s what he tells himself.

-

Shawn Hunter is twenty six and is still traveling. He writes and takes pictures and talks to people. He listens. He observes.  He writes it all down and tries to get the perfect pictures, but there’s always something missing from his work, he feels, even when it’s praised by his editors. There’s something deeper, some truth about these people and places that he can’t quite grasp.

He’s still looking for something, but he doesn’t know what it is or where to look for it. Sometimes it’s enough to ask for the universe to drop him a sign.

Then again, he very much doubts the universe is paying attention to him anyway.

-

Shawn Hunter is thirty one when he travels to the elder Matthews’ house for Riley’s tenth birthday. He only stays a couple of hours (he has train to DC and then a flight to Paris) but he makes an appearance.

It’s a small party, for such a big event.

“They wanted to have a family thing,” Topanga tells him while Riley chases Josh and Auggie toddles after them on his unsteady chubby toddler legs. “We’ll have something back in New York, too. It’s a shame you can’t be there Shawn. Riley really wanted you to meet her best friend.”

“Ah, you know me, Mrs. Cory,” Shawn says with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, “there’s always next time.”

-

Shawn Hunter is thirty four when he takes the next step to the rest of his life, and it has everything to do with the lonely, broken blonde girl.

He’s seen her face in the pictures that Topanga sends, knows her name from the stories that Cory tells him. She’s from a broken home, like he is, and she is so, so broken that it makes his chest ache. He’s glad that she found Cory and Topanga and Riley and Auggie and all the Matthews, but he knows better than anyone sometimes even the Matthews family can’t fix everything.

Now it’s his turn to try.

-

Shawn Hunter is thirty six when his life gets a lot more complicated. He’s in New York recovering from a broken arm when Kermit shows up. Not working sucks and being in one place for months at a time is odd after fourteen years, but he gets Katy kisses on her way to work and Maya smiles at breakfast, so yeah, things aren’t too bad. Well, they aren’t too bad until Kermit shows up.

Specifically, he shows up with a long lost son, four years Maya’s senior.

Katy is shocked.

Maya is confused.

There’s some yelling. There’s some crying. There’s some food throwing. Kermit leaves. Katy goes back to work. Shawn thinks he might have whiplash.

The kid doesn’t leave. Benji, his name is. He goes to NYU, lives in the same building as Josh.  He’s been alone a long time, he says, not knowing about his family. He’d really, _really_ like to get to know his sister.

Maya asks him what to do.  She’s looking at him with those big scared eyes and he wants to call for Cory, because he really, really doesn’t want to overstep his bounds. He doesn’t know what to tell her, so he opts for the truth.

“It’s up to you kiddo,” he tells her. “He’s your brother and nothing your mom or I have to say will change that. You’re the only one who can decide if you want him in your life. But, if you want him in it, then we’ll make it happen. All right?”

Benji sticks around. He reminds Shawn a lot of Maya and a lot of Jack and a little of himself.  He doesn’t want anything – he has friends, good friends, who always look out for him and are the whole reason he went looking for his father, so he could tell Kermit he wasn’t angry anymore.

His mother loves him. She’s Kermit’s high school sweetheart who didn’t know she was pregnant until after the two were over and done with. She worked two jobs to support him and lived with her father and he never took her love for granted. (This proclamation later earns Katy a watery smile and a big hug and a bigger apology.)

“I didn’t want there to be someone else like me out there,” Benji says to his smoothie. “I was angry and hurt for a long time and I didn’t get it. So…I was hoping you did.”

“Yeah,” Maya says. “I get it. I had a great teacher, if you want to share him.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Hey Matthews,” Maya calls and drags Benji over to where the adults are sitting and trying their best to look like they haven’t been listening in. “This is my big brother Benji and he could really use some help.”

There aren’t a whole lot of things that have gone right in his life, but Shawn thinks that meeting this girl might be one of the best.

-

Shawn Hunter is thirty six when he becomes a husband.

It’s not a big, blinding romance that he had been expecting. It’s quiet and sometimes awkward, but it’s sweet and genuine. It’s a feeling of _home_ that gets to him now. It’s the quiet, desperate longing to be back in New York that comes almost as soon as he’s left.  It’s in knowing that when he’s gone too long or his trip is delayed or he’s just bored, he can call up his two favorite blondes and he hasn’t had that in a very, very long time.

It’s in the way that Katy knows how he likes his coffee. (A Brazilian dark roast with one packet of sugar.)

It’s the way that Maya always knows what junk food he needs to binge on. (Caramel popcorn if it was a good job, salt and vinegar chips if it was bad.)

It’s the way that Katy’s mother knits him a maroon sweater for his colder trips. (He wears it every chance he gets.)

It’s the way that he so loves these Hart women that he can’t see straight.

He has no reference for how to be a good husband or a good father but there are enough of them in his life that he figures he can copy them.

It’s a small ceremony, with the all Matthews (even Morgan had flown in from the west coast) and Jack and Feeny and John. Maya’s friends are involved, of course, and Auggie and his friend Ava. It’s all the people who make up their lives and Shawn is floored by how closely they intersect. It’s terrifying and comforting all at the same time, because he doesn’t know if it had always been like this or if had happened gradually without him noticing.

Katy is gorgeous and Maya is beautiful and Cory is at his side and everything feels _right._ Cory is his Best Man and Maya is her Maid of Honor.  Eric officiates and Amy cries. Topanga doesn’t look like she’s doing too well either and Feeny gives him a quiet heartfelt “congratulations, Mister Hunter,” and a hug.

They have their first dance and it’s…magic. (Topanga recommended _Save the Best for Last_ and it just works for them.) It’s slow and sweet and they both giggle when they stumble over some fancier moves but it’s _them_ and Shawn can’t stop himself, then, from getting teary eyed.  Everyone joins them for the second song of the night ( _Groovy Kind of Love_ , because Katy is a total Phil Collins fan.) He knows the Matthews and John and his wife are there, somewhere. Cory is dancing with Topanga behind him and Shawn can feel all the love surrounding him and it’s almost enough to make him cry. (Again, but only Cory saw the first wave of tears.)

His eyes seek out Maya – his _daughter_ he can say at long last –and finds her swaying softly with the cowboy. He doesn’t know what makes him frown, but the two are whispering and smiling to each other and – wasn’t he going out with Riley? No, the brunette is happily doing some odd dance with Minkus. Farkle. He has to start calling the kid by his name.

Katy follows his gaze and huffs out a laugh.  She kisses the corner of his mouth to get his attention. “Congratulations, Dad. It’s a teenage girl.”

-

 Thirty six is a pretty good year for Shawn Hunter.


	2. Chapter Two

Shawn Hunter is thirty seven when his son is born. It wasn’t something either him or Katy had planned and it’s a shock to his system. Yes, he’s Maya’s step-dad now (even though she never calls him “step”, he’s always Shawn or Dad, and she’s just his girl), but she’s a mostly formed person, well on her way to adulthood.  He doesn’t know how to be a dad to a baby or even what he’s supposed to do with a baby.

 

It’s Topanga who gets to him, really. After she laughs at him and his worries (which, totally unfair, Mrs. Cory), she sits and holds his hand and tells him why it’s a good thing. She reminds him that Katy knows what to do.  That his father would be proud of him. That Maya will be ecstatic. That he and Katy have made a little tiny person filled with love.

 

But he doesn’t know how to stand still. But he’s spent his whole childhood being left. But he’s spent his whole adult life running. But he doesn’t know how to teach this kid anything.

 

“That’s okay,” Topanga says and rubs his arm. “We’re here to help, Shawn. We’re family. We’re always here.”

 

“Even when I’m not.”

 

Topanga gives him a sad, watery smile and places a kiss on his forehead, the kind he knows mothers give to their children, the kind he’s seen her give to Riley and Maya and Auggie.  She whispers ‘always’ and rests her cheek on his head and Shawn thinks she _gets_ it – maybe it was growing up with him, maybe it was helping raise Maya, or maybe it was some intangible Topanga-ness, but she gets it and that makes it even more okay than Cory’s excited jumping and squealing.

 

For a while, everyone is happy. Everything is okay, just like Topanga said it would be.

 

There are complications with the delivery and Katy is sick. Something with a lot of big words that has to do with her heart and comes with a lot of apologies. He doesn’t really grab what the doctors say – his son is fine and his wife is sort of not fine, but she’s fine for now and there will be tests later.

 

Christopher Jonathan Hunter has his big sister wrapped around his tiny newborn finger from the second they meet and there’s a feeling behind his chest that it takes him too, too long to recognize. These are his kids. This is his family.

 

He’s got this.

-

Shawn Hunter is thirty nine and his daughter is heading off to college.

 

Rhode Island is only three odd hours away but it might as well be half the world.

 

Katy is crying into her daughter’s hair while Topanga checks her suitcases, again. Riley is hovering at the edges for Maya’s dorm, looking torn between squealing and running. He knows the feeling.

 

Maya’s classes start the earliest, so the group had driven out with them. Minkus Jr and Riley will head north in two days, while Lucas and Zay will head back to New York at the same time.

Shawn’s not sure how Cory can be ok with meeting Riley at Yale with her things, but he kind of gets that the girls need their time too, and he knows Cory probably needs some space to think. Benji has a gig in the area and a friend with a recording studio so he’ll be around, close but not too close, and  it does very little to ease Shawn’s nerves.

 

Chris is under everyone’s feet while they move her into her single room (“Please don’t forget to make some friends, baby girl.”) and he winds up being passed between the teenagers.

 

He makes goofy faces at Maya when he sees his sister get too serious or at Katy when she gets to sad. He passes his juice box to Topanga and a cookie to Riley when the two Matthews women get a far off look in their eyes.

 

He laughs when Minkus Jr has to chase him down the hallways, Chris squealing loudly and somehow covered in bubbles. Zay has him wound up on sugar and is running right along with him by the time they’re half way done.

 

Finally, he ends up perched on Lucas’s shoulders, and the young man seems to have no trouble balancing the fidgety toddler and Maya’s art supplies at the same time. Chris is considerably quieter after that, aside from random pats on the head and shy smiles at his sister’s new classmates.

 

They leave Maya and the kids with hugs and kisses and promises to call and lots of tears.

 

There’s something sitting deep in his stomach, some feeling that he can’t place and it scares him.

-

Thirty nine is not a good year for Shawn Hunter.

-

Shawn Hunter is thirty nine and a widower.

 

The previously undiagnosed medical condition that had made itself known during Katy’s pregnancy finally reared its ugly head and taken his wife from him. He still can’t really pronounce it and even though his brain knows the terms and what they mean he doesn’t really _understand_.

There’s a pain in her chest and a dish in a million pieces on the floor. There’s red lights and some EMTs. There’s running and yelling and crying and screaming, but in the end it’s just Shawn standing in a cold hospital hallway, alone.

 

His wife is dead.

 

His son is with Cory and Topanga.

 

His daughter is racing back to the city but she’s already too late and _he’s going to have to tell her._

 

_His wife is dead._

 

Maya is devastated, and the self-destructive part of Shawn is glad that Cory and Topanga are there to help with the kids. He doesn’t know what to do or how to handle it. He would have though the death of his own father would have helped him deal with the tiny blonde girl, but instead it makes him retreat into himself.

 

Maya is his daughter and Chris is his son but he has no idea how to be a single father to either of them. He barely knew how to be a regular father to them.

 

The worst part is that he knows he’s sent himself into a tailspin. It hurts him to breathe because he’s _alone again_ and was it even worth it?

 

It’s Lucas who finds him, two days after the funeral, sitting in a dark bar at ten in the morning.

 

“Shouldn’t you heading back to school, Cowboy?”

 

“Shouldn’t you be with your kids?”

 

It’s been two days since he’s seen his kids. Maybe a week since Maya could look him in the eye. He can’t blame her.

 

“They’ll be better with Cory and Topanga.”

 

“They need their father,” Lucas takes a seat next to him. He takes Shawn’s glass and sniffs it, pulling a disgusted face at its contents. “And that’s you.

 

“You don’t have to talk, I’ve figured you don’t want to, but I have something to say, so you’re going to listen. Those are your kids. Chris is your son. He’s two and he just lost his mama and he doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s _screaming_ , Shawn, and no one can make him stop. Maya just lost her mother and she’s…I don’t know what’s going on in her head, but it’s _bad._ Riley can’t get to her, the Matthews can’t. She won’t listen to me or Farkle. She needs _you_.”

 

Shawn wants to be this father that Lucas thinks he is, or the kind of father that Chris and Maya need, but there’s a terrible aching ball of _something_ in his stomach again and so many years of being alone and closed off that he doesn’t know how.

 

“Just…go _away_ , Lucas.”

 

“You’ll forgive me for saying so, sir, but no. I’m sorry, I am, I’m truly sorry about Mrs Hunter, but you have _got_ to come with me. You _can’t_ do this to yourself or them. It’s not fair.”

The cold hard ball in his stomach finally blooms into and whit hot ball of anger in his chest and he has _had_ it.

 

“No, you know what’s not fair? I get three years. _Three years_ , Lucas.  My mom left me and my step mom left me. My dad left and then he died.  Hell, Angela left me and then turned around and married some…some _guy_. I thought Katy’d stick around. I thought I’d…I thought we’d get forever.”

 

“And what are you doing? Hiding. They _need_ you. Chris needs you. Maya _needs_ you. They just lost their mom. You know how that is. Maya has to go back to school and Chris won’t stop crying and that just makes Maya cry and yell about staying.”  He says it all in a rush, his voice rising. Lucas takes a deep breath and Shawn thinks this is the first time that he’s ever seen Lucas Friar well and truly angry. It makes him pause, even in his own righteous anger. “You are going to sober up. You’re going to go home to your kids. You’re going to pack Maya up on a train and send her to school when she’s ready. You’re going to keep it together because you’re their _father_ and they need you. I can’t come find you every time you decide you can’t handle this. I can help out with Chris when you need a break. I can help Maya. This is terrible, but I am _not_ going to let it destroy this family. I am _not_ letting Maya drown in this one. This is a horrible, terrible thing, but we are ALL going to get through it, together. ”

 

“That’s…the most I’ve ever heard you say.”

 

“Word count is what you’re taking away from this?”

 

Something finally clicks in Shawn’s blurry mind, a string of words finally lacing themselves into coherency. “Maya…Maya doesn’t want to go back to school? Maya has to go back to school.”

 

“She thinks someone needs to be with Chris,” Lucas says evenly. “Like I said. I can come help out sometimes. Chris is a good little guy. I….I love this family, Shawn, and if no one’s going to fight for it, then I will.”

 

Shawn takes a deep breath and looks at Lucas’s determined face. There’s no judgment there, no anger or hostility that he had expected to find. “You’re a good man, Lucas.”

 

“Thank you, sir. I learned from the best.”

 

Shawn knows, somehow, they’re both thinking of Cory.

-

Shawn Hunter is forty and he has a new job and a new apartment.

 

He caves, of course, and buys a townhouse in the same building as Cory and Topanga. It’s easier, being near family.

 

He works part time as a Journalism advisor for the high school, and has a new blog on the side. What had started as a single piece for his editor about inheriting a teenager and raising a toddler had become a full time gig now that he couldn’t travel.

 

Funny thing was it made him happy. It made things easier, writing about Maya and Chris and what it had been like going from a mid-thirties bachelor who traveled constantly to having a sixteen year old. It helped him focus when he could look back on the lessons and curve balls living with Maya had thrown him. It made him not feel so alone when he wrote about being a single dad to Chris.

Lucas stops by when he can. Cornell is almost four hours away, but he checks in every now and again on his way to visit Maya in Rhode Island. Sometimes Maya stops by on her way to him.

 

Sometimes they meet in the middle.

 

It’s when they meet in the middle that scares him. Chris is three and loves his sister more than anything. Chris loves everyone, especially Topanga, but there is something special with his sister that makes Shawn want to call up Jack every time he sees the two together.

 

His son is three and his daughter is nineteen, and when she and Lucas swing Chris between them on their way to the park something inside him _hurts_.

-

Shawn Hunter is forty two and a grandfather.

 

Maya’s delivery is easier than Katy’s, just early and a bit scary. Shawn’s never been more scared of waiting for anything in his whole life, not even when Chris was born. He didn’t know what could go wrong then, but he knows now, and that’s his _daughter_ in there. Zay is pacing in front of the doors, waiting for news. Riley is waiting with Minkus, the two of them so close they may as well be Siamese twins. Chris is cuddled up with Topanga, having fallen asleep some hours ago.

Cory is leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed over his chest, staring longingly at the doors. There’s a tightness around his eyes and a clench of his jaw that even Shawn has trouble placing.

 

Yeah, Maya might be his legally, but Cory’s her father too. Sometimes he forgets that.

Auggie arrives after school, newly thirteen. His face is red, but Shawn can’t tell if that’s from the biting fall air or from the teen’s own emotions. He greets his mother and sister with a kiss on the cheek before he makes his way over to his father, mimicking his pose.

 

Auggie is just the start of it.

 

Alan and Amy arrive a few hours later, then Jonathan. Between the two men, Shawn feels…safe. Like everything will be okay. They had helped him and with them here, nothing will happen to his girl. Josh is there briefly but can’t stay – he’s got a long day ahead of him, but he wants to check in, make sure everything is alright. Eric. Lucas’s grandfather. Jack.

 

They’re surrounded by so much love that it’s overwhelming. When he has to duck out after seven hours just to find some quiet time to himself, it’s Alan who finds him  sitting on the cold floor in an empty hallway. The older man doesn’t say anything, but he slides to the floor next to Shawn and wraps an arm around his shoulder. Alan isn’t his father, but he is _a_ father and he knows how scary it can be.

 

Maya is tired and Finn is having some trouble breathing, but they’re both going to be just fine. Lucas is all smiles and there are hugs and tears and somehow none of it is overwhelming in the end.

 

His family is just a little bit bigger now.

-

Ten years is not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things, but it’s just enough time for the universe to twist his world inside out and upside down.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was...pretty hard to write, for a lot of reasons. I promise that things are going to get better for him after this. Let me know what you think!


	3. Chapter Three

-

Shawn Hunter is forty five when his daughter gets married.

Riley is back from London and Shawn thinks that’s really what the blonde might have been waiting for. For Riley to go and find herself so she could come back and they could be RileyandMaya again. The two have been practically attached at the hip since Riley returned.

It’s not a big wedding – mostly family, a few friends from college. It’s bigger than his and Katy’s was; Lucas isn’t on speaking terms with most of his family by that point. Still, between the Babineaux’s and other family friends from Texas, plus the extended Matthews clan, it’s nearly double the size of his own wedding. 

There is craziness, as to be expected (a cousin that decides to become vegan a month before the wedding, bridal party drama, some tantrums from Finn and Chris, and the sheer amount of people is enough to make his head spin and his palms sweat) but…his daughter is stunning and so, so happy. 

The Maya Hart that he and Cory walk down the aisle is far cry from the broken, lonely girl he met years ago. Her eyes are big and glassy, and Cory looks close to tears himself, so Shawn figures he’s going to have to be the strong one. (Amy and Topanga have been crying since early that morning, so they’re no help.) 

“What are you smiling at, Blondie?”

“I’m happy,” Maya says, leaning her head briefly on Cory’s shoulder and giving him a tiny, genuine Maya Hart smile. “I really get it. People change people. What us does for them.”

Shawn’s eyebrows knit together in confusion. Her eyes slide over to him and then back to Cory. Cory gives her a careful kiss on the forehead. “Secret of life. Thank you, Maya.”

“Either of you going to tell me what that means?”

Cory straightens his shoulders and adopts some ridiculous Cory expression that makes Maya giggle and Shawn grin. “Student teacher confidentiality.”

Even for a wedding, it’s a sentimental affair. 

Finn interrupts his parents first dance when Maya gets teary eyed. She hoists the toddler up to her and whispers to him. He pats her red cheeks and says something that Shawn can’t hear, but it makes Lucas laugh and kiss his wife on the head.

There are a lot of dances that night – him and Maya, Maya and Cory, him and Topanga, Topanga and Lucas, Maya and Chris, Alan and Maya. He thinks his daughter might have wound up dancing with every single person at her wedding. 

His favorite is Riley and Maya. When Maya stopped growing, Riley started, ending somewhere around five-foot-seven, and the two made an almost comical pair. The heels Maya usually wore helped to balance it out, but between the shoes each of them were wearing, Maya still only managed to come up to her friend’s chin.

Their hands are clutched together, with Riley’s arm wrapped around Maya’s shoulders. She tugs at the loose curls that have managed to escape from their pins and the girls are laughing. Real, genuine belly laughs that carry over the music and infect everyone near them with the same giddy laughter. Maya has an arm wrapped around Riley’s waist and it’s as if the two were never apart. They twirl each other, nearly toppling into each other due to their giggles and even though he promised to not be the photographer, he can’t help but snap a picture of the two.

“Those are our girls, Shawnie.” 

 

-

Shawn is forty six and Maya’s wedding is followed quickly by Riley’s, to the surprise of everyone but Maya it seems. Cory is a mess. Josh is blubbering. In fact, the entire Matthews clan is in varying level of tears.

It is, without a doubt, above and beyond more formal than the suit he’d worn to anyone's wedding. The Minki (oh God, when had Maya gotten him to say that? Had he said it in front of anyone?) spared no expense and Minkus Junior had gone all out to give Riley her perfect Fairytale wedding, but for all the grandiose gestures and high ceilings, it still felt surprisingly intimate.

Fall very much suited Riley. The yellows and oranges made her glow even more than her happiness did. Thought he had never put thought to it, standing at the altar, her hands clasped firmly with Farkle’s, she looks content.

He watches Riley and Farkle as they say their own vows (what…is this about Pluto?) and it clicks for him. People change people.

Maya catches his eye and grins. What us does for them.

This…this is his family.

 

-

Shawn Hunter is forty nine when he becomes a grandfather for the second time, and Cory becomes one for the first.

The girls are excited to be pregnant together. 

Lucas is cautiously excited, partly because there’s still a lingering threat of health concerns in his mind (even though Maya had been to doctors and whatever Katy had, Maya doesn’t), but mostly because he isn’t sure he can handle a pregnant Maya and a pregnant Riley at the same time. Shawn is….really glad the Cowboy can deal with it though, because Junior is a mess and he’s got an almost teenager at home. He’s been finding it harder and harder to keep up with his oldest and her friends and while part of him is saddened by it, mostly he’s just tired. 

Maya is eight weeks along when she finds out (after nearly losing her breakfast all over her newest art piece). Later that week, Riley finds out she’s six weeks along (after actually losing her dinner all over Maya’s art studio.) From what Shawn understood, it was gross.

(“Tossing cookies doesn’t mean pregnancy, Maya,” Minkus Junior said, a slight panic in his voice.

“No, but her boobs have gone up at least a cup size. How have not noticed?”

Shawn really wished he’d never overheard that.)

The girls tell Auggie over Skype and he cancels his plans for spring break to come and see them. He’s almost twenty now, and taller than Cory. His hair is still wild and he still wears suspenders that hang form his pants in a way that Shawn doesn’t really get. But he’s home.

Noah Hunter Friar is ten days older than Castor Alan Matthews Minkus and from the moment the two tiny boys are introduced, Shawn pities Cory being their teacher.

Because of course he’d be their teacher. Shawn can’t imagine it any other way.

-

Shawn Hunter is fifty two when his son enters high school.

Every year, on the first day of school, Shawn and Cory sneak into Topanga’s before the others wake up and sit. Sometimes they talk and there’s always coffee. (Sumatran now, which Maya and Zay both swear by. Sometimes Topanga blends the Sumatran with some Brazilian and a dash of vanilla bean and it’s almost like heaven.) It’s a quiet ritual between the two of them.

 

“He’s a good kid, Shawnie,” Cory says, placing a hand on his friend’s shoulder. 

Shawn knows he’s a good kid. With Cory and Topanga as a loving Aunt and Uncle and Jonathan Turner as a supportive grandfather and Maya has a doting big sister, he knows his son has grown up loved by some of the best people in the world. 

“Man, I can’t believe you’ve got a kid in high school,” Maya says, ever unhelpful, as she lets herself in to the café. Both men look at her and then at each other. Her own kids won’t be awake for another two hours and her day doesn’t begin until much later.

“You know, Finn’s gonna be in my class in a few years,” Cory responds, giving Shawn a slow smile. 

“Don’t start, Matthews.”

“You know, Cor,” Shawn says, with a sideways glance as Maya helps herself to the coffee behind the counter. “We’re grandparents. I’ve got a son starting high school. Riley’s a mom, and Auggie’s out of college. How did we get here?”

“Well, when a man and a woman love each other- ”

“Not helpful, blondie. You know, your son is ten.”

“Riley wants more little minki.”

“Why am I being dragged back into this?”

“You’re an easy target.”

“What are you doing here, Maya?” Cory asks softly.

“My little brother starts high school today.” She smiles at them both over the rim of her coffee cup. “Where were you when Josh started high school, Matthews?”

Cory pats the space in between him and Shawn. Maya obligingly sits between them, wiggling until she’s comfortable. Cory wraps his arm around her shoulder and pulls her into his side. “Well, I was at home, getting two little girls ready for their first day of middle school. One of which amazingly stubborn.”

“Can’t imagine which one it was.”

“Oh, I bet you can’t.”

“But,” Maya says, slurping her coffee in a way more befitting a teenage than the thirty one year old she is, “you called him. You called him and told him you loved him and you were proud of him. I heard you, while Riley was deciding between shoes.”

“I did,” Cory said with a small smile.

“I just feel like I’m missing things with Chris. And high school is a big deal. So I’m here to take my little brother to his first day of high school,” she said, but neither man can decipher what’s quite going on in her head, and for all that Shawn thought he might know, he also know when to give her space. “Besides. I hear his history teacher is a weirdo and I want to give him some pointers.”

-

Shawn doesn’t believe in good and evil, not really. He’s never really been sure about religion or praying or any of that. But he does think that the universe might know what it’s doing. The Universe gave him Cory, who by extension gave him Maya. Through Maya he got Katy, who he still misses so much that sometimes he has to catch his breath. It gave him Chris, his bright, motivated boy with the biting wit. 

All the heartbreak is worth it. He loves his kids more than he thought possible. Saying goodbye to George, then to Jonathan and finally Alan hurts. It hurts, but every day it hurts a bit less. The all-encompassing loneliness he had felt at his father’s passing, at Katy’s, never reaches him. Chris and Maya are there for each loss, one hand tucked into each of his even though they’re both grown. Death no longer feels like the end of the world, but rather a lesson taught by an old, old friend. He’s there to comfort his children and grandchildren, his nieces and nephews.

Through it all, Cory and Topanga are there. Some are losses they all share, some are not. He still doesn’t know where his life ends and theirs begins and that doesn’t scare him the way that it used to. 

People change people. He repeats it sometimes, to himself. These people he has surrounded himself with have changed him into the best man he could possibly be. For that, he is grateful. 

\-   
Shawn Hunter is eighty seven and he is happy.

He has wonderful friends, two amazing loves, and two phenomenal children. He has five grandchildren and one great grandchild. He has beloved nieces and nephews. He’s had a successful career, part of which he was able to share with his best friend, and traveled to indescribably beautiful places all over the world.

He’s been heartbroken and left devastated but he has seen and done so much, met so many amazing people that the loneliness, though it feels like an old friend, still feels like it belongs to someone else. 

“It's okay, Dad,” Maya says. He wants to reach out and brush the tears from her eyes, but it hurts to move. “It's okay. We’re okay.”

Everyone is okay. He loves them all and is loved himself. He is happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it folks. Sorry for the downer ending. I went back and forth if there should have been more, but there wasn't too much else to say without rehashing what he had already learned. Thanks for sticking through this with me!.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from The Riddle by Five for Fighting. Poor Shawn doesn't have a lot of things go right for him, but I do think that's changing. Let me know what you think!


End file.
